We wrote the This I Believe essay in English as a way to express something we believe in in writing, after reading several examples from the This I Believe essay series featured on NPR. After writing this essay, we used After Effects to produce a video version in Digital Media.
I believe that something being popular doesn’t automatically make it bad. When I was a kid, everyone who liked One Direction was ridiculed. Everyone who liked Twilight was teased endlessly. And don’t even mention Justin Bieber. I participated in this culture fully and wholeheartedly, along with everyone I knew. And not just the kids— during my brief but intense One Direction phase all my dad did was make fun of me, and it hurt a little bit. Was I being cringy? Of course! I was a nine year old who was only obsessed with a group of British twinks because my best friend was, and I spent all my time scouring the internet for Niall Horan fun facts. But is One Direction bad? Their songs are catchy! Being enthusiastic about stuff is almost always a good thing, and it’s not like they really have a significant bad influence on people. Listening to “Best Song Ever” on repeat didn’t give me bad morals. Not to mention the fact that all of these widely hated for no reason things in pop culture usually only have one thing in common— their popularity among teenage girls.Everyone loves to make fun of teenage girls, including a fairly large number of teenage girls themselves. They’re often identified by their tendency to say that they’re “not like other girls”. And of course the “not like other girls” girls are somewhat toxic for putting their peers down. But I can empathize with them a little bit. I think that they’re misguided, but they’re also just trying to prove themselves to the world as an actual human person with value. Especially in a society that seems to shame every little thing done by their peers!
We as people have an urge to be seen as unique, and so a lot of people want to express that in their interests by making them as obscure and unique as they can, either consciously or subconsciously. I’m obviously not saying that liking obscure, weird things is bad, either. I spend a lot of my time listening to folk punk music and hyperpop. But I also listen to Nicki Minaj and ABBA! What I’m saying is that we need to dismantle the idea of popularity being bad. We need to like things for the sake of liking them. Vibe and let vibe! Be proud of liking The Hunger Games and Taylor Swift! Be unapologetically enthusiastic! We have actual, real issues to worry about in the world, and this is not one of them.